Kepler-1520
system
Kepler-1520 — an orange dwarf ~1,980 light-years away in Cygnus, host to a DYING planet. Kepler-1520 b is a small rocky world so hot it is evaporating, trailing a comet-like tail of dust as it slowly crumbles away. Descend to see the disintegrating planet and its dust tail.
Open in 3D viewSee Kepler-1520 in the live, interactive 3D map
Science
Classification
- Type
- Planetary system
- Distance
- ~1,983 light-years · its real distance from the Sun
- Explore
- Descend to see the star and its confirmed planets
How we know
- Note
- A real star system, shown at its measured position in the galaxy. Its star and confirmed planets — their measured sizes and how each was found — are on the cards inside; descend to explore them. Distances follow Gaia parallax; planet data follow the NASA Exoplanet Archive.
Discovery & history
- Name
- A designation from NASA's Kepler mission (also KIC 12557548 / KOI-3794).
Kepler-1520 b revealed itself through transits of ever-changing depth — the tell-tale of a vast, shifting DUST CLOUD streaming from a doomed planet rather than a solid disc. The little world, no bigger than Mercury, is so fiercely heated (~1,400 K+) that its rocky surface vaporises and boils off, forming a trailing comet-like tail. It is expected to fully disintegrate in perhaps a hundred million years.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image